As far as Gary Jacobs* knows, he is the only Jew in his unincorporated community of fewer than 20 people near Georgia’s Tallulah River. This northeastern Georgia region is an area where expressions such as “Jew ’em down” are casually bandied about, and the nearby Jewish sleepaway camp, Ramah Darom, is referred to as “that Jew camp” or even, improbably, “Camp Ramadan.” “They don’t like outsiders,” says Jacobs, a high school teacher in his 50s, who asked us not to use his real name. “They’re very religious, at least they claim to be, and, not placing fault on anybody, but they don’t understand what being a non-Christian means.”
So once a month Jacobs drives 56 miles southwest to Dahlonega (Duh-LAWN-uh-ga), a town of about 6,000 nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, for Friday night services at Shalom B’Harim. Shalom B’Harim is a small nondenominational congregation serving the handful of Jews scattered throughout the mountains of North Georgia and some who work at or attend the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega. There are 3,500 Jews in the 20 northernmost counties in Georgia, comprising just 0.41 percent of the total population, according to the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University. Shalom B’Harim, which literally means Peace in the Mountains, serves as a haven for some of these isolated Jews. “I’m not very observant at all. I’m culturally Jewish,” says Jacobs. “But at the same time, I need an outlet.”